Surprising, magnificence but with a lack of a French touch defined the evening when the French artist Yann Tiersen took the stage at Mejeriet in Lund. The public was lucky to listen to the wonderful songs of Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain.
The culture house Mejeret received Yann Tiersen and his group on Thursday for an exciting evening. Tickets were sold out and the crowd was very noisy and excited. In the concert hall, a lot of international students were represented as well as ordinary Lundanians.
The Black English band from Los Angeles began the evening with a few songs. The Los Angeles’ band whet our appetite with rock songs and the singer and his four musicians invested in the music insofar as they seemed to bring back memories with their songs. From love songs to songs about experiences, the band was clearly here to stimulate the crowd with Stay with me or Leave the door wide open.
The Black English band are following the Yann Tiersen European Tour. This tour began on the 23rd of September at Dublin and will finish on the 27th of November in Paris at Olympia. It is an intense program for the artist who plays a lot of instruments live. During yesterday’s concert he played guitar, piano, violin, accordion and toy piano. He is also a singer, and a composer-songwriter.
By coming to the concert, people didn’t really know what exactly they would be listening to. For sure, everybody hoped to listen the Amelie’s soundtrack. But what else? Different impressions during the show were felt. Firstly, the disappointment, there were no chairs to sit and a lot of people thought it would be a Tiersen solo, like a classical concert. But the concert was not foreseen in this way. For those who really enjoy classical music indeed, they were a bit disappointed because this new album Infinity, recorded in May 2014, asserts a rock side and contemporary music. Yann Tiersen has always played rock music but with the huge success of Amelie Poulain, people have some difficulties to see this side. People really enjoyed the rare moments when he played solo because he is very gifted. He knows how to transmit emotions with his instruments.
A second emotion felt was strangeness with the Meteorites’ song which opened the show. This song clearly showed the atmosphere of Infinity by talking about things in the world which will ever stay on the planet like stones, minerals and infinite nature.
Now people who were on the concert can say that they know the real Yann Tiersen; his personality (a bit shy), his ability with instruments and his gift for rock and emotional songs. Mr. Tiersen is talented and is an amazing musician. The
artist knew how to stimulate emotions with a few snatches of music in particular when he began to play Amelie’s song. The entire crowd was crazy when Mr. Tiersen played this song, good feeling, good moment, that I will never forget.
A girl among the crowd said: “At the end I was disappointed by some music, it didn’t sound like Yann Tiersen for me.” The artist played electric instruments and manipulated digital and analogue manipulations, analogue synthesizer. These sounds are so much opposed to Amelie’s song, personally it’s not my cup of tea. I prefer more classical instrument and to feel the wood through the violin and to feel the beautiful piano’s snares.
Where is the French touch ? French communities were a bit disappointed by the lack of French touch during the show. All songs were in English and no references were made to the country or his home region, Brittany. We, and I, expected a small “Bonsoir, comment allez-vous?” or “Y’a t’il des bretons parmi nous ce soir?” French people just hope that he will not identify him as an English or American artist like Daft Punk’s band.
